Filler trademark: too many bystanders! Just standing! Doing nothing! They immobilized Sora and they didn't even think of placing the First Hokage's necklace on Sora so Yamato can do the chakra containment thing -- it should have been over back then!

Sunday, August 03, 2008

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Last Saturday was my 3rd visit to GameCrab (http://gamecrabcafe.com/). I particularly wanted to go back because of something I saw in their website:

How could I NOT take them on? =D

And so I did!

The rules of the challenge are:

The game of the month is Super Boggle (a 5x5 letter board).

Declare a challenge, and pay P15.

Play 5 rounds of Super Boggle, where only 5-letter words and above are counted.

Scoring, per word:

5-letters: 2 points

6-letters: 3 points

7-letters: 5 points

8-letters and above: 11 points

Beat the GameMaster's total score.

Claim your FREE steak! The steak regularly costs P99!

One challenge per person per day.

Upon arriving, I was already feeling nervous (as I always do, before competitions). I couldn't get into my "word-finding mindset".

After quite some time (of looking around and sizing up the GameMaster from afar), I overheard someone else asking about the challenge. I was panicky, thinking that someone had beaten me to it. I watched as the GameMaster explained the rules to some guy -- who, lucky for me, was really just asking! The guy left right away -- and I approached the counter soon after!

We took the tables at the center. It was a bit chilly and my hands felt really cold. They were shaking, too. The cold was a welcome excuse for the shaking.

Round 1. As the challenger, I shook up the blocks, let them settle and handed the set to the arbiter. The arbiter puts it down, opens the cover and flips the sand timer. It's on! And I couldn't find any 5-letter words! It took me until one-third of the timer had elapsed before I could write my first word. At the end of round, all but one of the handful of words I could jot down was cancelled. GameMaster Sef, 6. Nikki, 2.

Round 2. It was almost the same story, only slightly worse. GameMaster Sef, 10. Nikki, 2.

Round 3. I was all "What the heck! I suck! I lose!" I didn't quite absorb the rules earlier. I thought that it was a best of 5 match, and if I lost this third round, it was the end of the challenge. I was muttering, "Arrrgh, last round.."

Yes, I am scowling. I got pretty distracted, when I noticed the gang watch. I waved them away, and at one point I even covered my face. I try to excuse myself, saying that I was distracted. GameMaster Sef try to call back the gang, in jest.

I'm sorry, peeps -- I'm at my most anti-social when I'm under pressure..

It ends. GameMaster Sef, 13. Nikki, 6.

I let out a sigh of relief -- relief that it was, at least, over. Then I was told that we weren't done yet! It was explained once again that we were to play out all 5 rounds, and the winner was to be decided based on the total points over those 5 rounds, that I could still catch up! I was saying that it was hopeless anyway, that I had no chance of coming back. But I still played.

Round 4. I forgot about the scores. I forgot about what round it was. I was just.. ready. The timer is flipped, and the game starts. As before, I couldn't figure out any words. I was merely staring at the letters. Until, when almost half the timer had passed, I started tracing a word that snaked across the board. Then, the words just came out.

Behind me are Chester and Edge, spotting lots more words

True relief!

GameMaster Sef, (something). Nikki, 20.

My first word was THIRTEEN -- an 11-pointer!

I couldn't believe it! It was all going too fast!

The score was recorded every round, but I didn't know the running totals. I didn't know how much more I needed. The next and final round started too soon.

Round 5. Again, I didn't start writing early. But after some time, like in the previous round, the words, they just came out. When the round ended, it strangely felt that it ended at just the right time.

We had almost the same number of words written down. Mine were scored first. I had barely cancelled anything on his list. But, it turned out that most of his words were not on the dictionary they were using (most being colloquial words)! I was feeling really hopeful at this point. The scores were totalled.

I closed my eyes, tilted my head back and raised both my arms. Aahhh, yes. I missed that feeling.

We shook hands, and he asked me if I was open for a rematch the next time I visited. Of course, I was! =D

I learned that it was his first ever loss. The other Super Boggle GameMaster had already lost once. That made me the second person to win the challenge.

I was told that I had to write on their bulletin.

He pointed at the lower-right corner of the page, and I wrote my name. I was almost finished, when I was interrupted. It seems that I wasn't supposed to write my name! Just a tick on the tally. I felt really dumb.

So, there's the long tally of challengers who lost (lower left), and just two ticks for the challengers who won (lower right) -- and, look at that! That's my name right there!

The Disney stuff kinda stand out to me mostly because, not only were they plainly fun to watch, but for kids' shows they were really well-rounded and the stories were (relatively) well-told. I mean, I'd really feel sad during sad parts, and I'd really get excited during action scenes. The conflicts were much more compelling than in.. Thundercats!

Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers Intro --- "Ch-ch-ch-Chip N Dale! Rescue Rangers.." I was most affected by this show's dramatic moments, where one of the characters would go off on his own..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e5q6ubDlZE

(UPDATE, 1 minute after posting) I'm baffled by the stand of the original author Alan Moore that he wouldn't watch any film rendition of the Watchmen..

---

(UPDATE, 3 minutes after last update) How many times should you see that trailer before you'd get tired of it?? I'm guessing-- YOU'RE NOT GONNA GET TIRED OF IT AND YOU'LL KEEP WATCHING IT UNTIL THE MOVIE COMES OUT.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

IPMsg (http://www.ipmsg.org/index.html.en) is a staple application here in the office. When I was given a Linux workstation, I then had to run IPMsg for Windows on Wine. However, it pops up a series several error messages on startup.

It was annoying the first time. But I somehow got used to it. But, still, if I could get rid of it, I would.

Then, yesterday, Randell thought of running IPMsg on his laptop which was on Fedora. He said that he downloaded IPMsg from its site, to be sure that he had the latest version. I was also reading around about running IPMsg on different LANs and I found out that IPMsg is open-source and cross-platform! So I took a look at the official site.

There were indeed various versions for different platforms (and languages! there's a Tagalog version?!)! I readily picked GNOME2 IP Messenger, as it was the UNIX version that was most recently updated (2008 at that! version as of writing is g2ipmsg-0.9.5).

A few things about GNOME2 IP Messenger (g2ipmsg), though.

Make sure you have all dependencies installed:

libxml-parser-perl

libgnomeui-dev

libpanel-applet2-dev

(UPDATE 2008-07-06 2:35AM -- additional dependencies)

gettext

intltool

How to install these depends on the Linux distribution. The easiest way is to use the graphical Package Manager.

(MAJOR UPDATE 2008-07-07 5:27PM)Randell reported that he couldn't find the dependencies in Fedora -- I was surprised! I did a search and found out that libxml-parser-perl was perl-XML-parser in Fedora! I suppose that the rest of the dependencies are only for Debian-based distros. Randell said that he'd look up the rest, and post a Fedora instructional soon. With that, I'm slapping the apt-get command back into the list below.

After assuring that you have the above dependencies, you can do a conventional build and install from source. Assuming that the current working directory is where g2ipmsg-0.9.5.tar.gz is located:

Especially when you only have less than P1000 in your account and almost all the ATMs in the mall already ran out of P100 bills and you really, really need the cash and you don't have any left in your pockets.

Maybe one of you guys might know who to give a heads up to, coz I don't know.

Kei and I had lunch at Food Choices at Gateway earlier. We noticed that most of the shops served their food on STYRO. We hadn't been there for months, so we decided to go for a safe choice: Jumbo Japs. We saw right away that they had stacks of styro bowls, which they handed to us for our rice. We asked for plates instead --- they gave us styro plates. Kei asked for a spoon and a fork and they gave us plastic spoons and forks. We asked if they had stainless steel utensils, but they said that they didn't. We were surprised.

We hadn't started eating yet when we noticed that some other shops also served their food on styro plates and bowls.

After eating, we walked around and saw that most of the shops had stacks of styro plates and bowls.

Was it a policy of Food Choices? Were they trying to save water and were willing to splurge on plastic instead?

Wasn't it only around 3 years ago when Gary Granada was heading a movement for McDonald's to reduce their styro usage?

Not that I've turned environmental activist, but I REALLY HATE EATING ON STYRO and I REALLY HATE PLASTIC SPOONS AND FORKS.

---

P.S. I cringe at the sight of the website GaryGranada.com, but I was curious about what he has to say when I saw a link to an article "How come some songs in this site are freely downloadable?" and I found it witty when he said at the end of it, "So why are the mp3s in this site accessible and some even downloadable for free? No, they’re not. We're just charging zero pesos."

I'm loyal enough to the Tekken name to not take it against them that King isn't hinted anywhere.. =p

Now. Cung Le.

Cung Le (which I've heard pronounced as "Lee") is a relatively new mixed martial artist. He's a kickboxer of some sort, and he now has a mixed martial arts record of 6 wins and 0 losses. His last match was with Frank "The Legend" Shamrock. Yes. Shamrock. And Cung Le won. Because he freakin' broke Frank Shamrock's arm with his kicks.

I'm not really a fan of the new df+4,3 string, but it's nice to have additional okizeme options.

I played against a Wang player, "ImpongButen" (Wang with baseball cap, talisman on forehead, powdered face), losing 2 games then winning the next 2. He didn't seem to want to play with me. =(

My next opponents were.. kids. I made that we won alternate rounds. Until I tried using Yoshimitsu, and I inadvertently won 3 rounds straight, because I was just mashing, and trying out whatever came out. I lost the next game on purpose.

What surprised me was that those kids, they were rich! The first kid I played against had a data card for Lili, and when he swiped his Powercard for his second game, I saw that he had 800+ pesos left. Ugh. The next kid--errr.. a teen-ager, a girl, had P1400+ on her Powercard! Another kid (the one I beat in straight rounds) had 300+ on his. *sigh* I'm just really surprised.

Friday, April 04, 2008

A bill that seeks to criminalize mimicking or imitating a person's way of speaking particularly his peculiar accent or diction in an insulting and degrading manner has been approved by a committee at the House of Representatives.

Now, this, I find reasonable:

Dumarpa's bill seeks to prohibit religious or racial discrimination against Muslim and other members of the cultural minorities.

...

Aside from mimickry or imitation, the proposed legislation also penalizes those who would subject any person to "unnecessary, unjustified, illegal and degrading search because of his manner of clothing, religion, color, creed, and ethnic identity."

"Discriminating a person who is applying for a job just because of his name, religion or ethnic background might also be a ground for imprisonment," Dumarpa said in a statement on Thursday.

But the part that says "seeks to criminalize mimicking or imitating a person's way of speaking particularly his peculiar accent or diction in an insulting and degrading manner" is a bit too vague.. I can already imagine this being used against comedians copying some popular/political personalities.

Thursday, April 03, 2008

I'm getting really annoyed at how Firefox (2.0.0.12/13 on both WinXP and XUbuntu ) has crashed on me more frequently this past couple of weeks.. What annoys me the most is that most of the crashes occur when I'm cleaning up my current session and I'm actually closing a lot of tabs.

Monday, March 17, 2008

A moderately-long running webcomic, this is one of those rare ones that never failed to make me laugh at almost every other strip (I embarass myself when I laugh uncontrollably and I'm alone!)! The only other ones I could recall is SMBC and XKCD..

Sunday, March 16, 2008

We at home were quite relieved that Pacquiao still won, after his very shaky performance and his lack of aggression in the 12th round. Marquez's cut over his right eye was ugly, but it was started by a headbutt. We thought Pacquiao's attempt to "counter [punch] the counter [puncher]" failed miserably! Marquez was obviously the more accurate puncher, landing punches on Pacquiao's cut with great timing. I was actually scared for Pacquiao after his cut opened up, and especially when he seemed to careful about it.

We also sympathize with Marquez when he expressed disappointment that Pacquiao did not want a rematch. And I winced a lot during Pacquiao's interview (an extra wince for Chavit's presence).

We watched the match on our local cable provider's channel, live with no commercial breaks! Aaand I don't think I'm spoiling it for anybody else, since I'm expecting those who are watching the delayed telecast to still be glued to your TV sets.. or not.. =p

Monday, March 10, 2008

There is no immediately available RSS feed for my own favorites?! What the hey! My first idea was that it should be really simple and therefore it might just be a particular way of constructing a URL.

And in my searching, there are a lot of other users who are looking for this same feed. I found several solutions that go deep into parsing the XML result of a REST request using the YouTube Developer's API or *gasp* the actual My Favorites page!

Fortunately, I found a solution done using Yahoo! Pipes. I took a peek into how it was done. And it WAS simple!

http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/users/<insert username>/favorites

Now I just have to test if it works on the PSP's RSS Channel! =D

(UPDATE 2008-03-10 7:52PM -- Awww, man! It's an Atom feed, not RSS!)

(UPDATE 2008-03-11 12:03AM -- Before Jaemark posted his FeedBurner comment, I was already playing with Yahoo! Pipes plus a bit more research.. aaand it seems that you just can't get video direct from YouTube onto the PSP.. there are a lot of PSP-compatible video sites, but YouTube still has the bulk of the videos worth sharing.. oh, well..)

Sunday, March 09, 2008

The most reliable CAPTCHA implementations were announce to have been defeated.

I don't know much about CAPTCHA, but couldn't they somehow mimic the "salting" done in password hashing? Maybe split the CAPTCHA images into random partitions: "gh9p3845" for example could be posted as two images with "gh9" and "p3845", or maybe even 4 partitions with "gh" + "9" + "p38" + "45" or, better yet, one image per letter -- what's important is the partitioning being random.

The article suggests "Distinguish pictures of dogs from cats". Since this might boil down to a somewhat a multiple choice question, bot could possibly get lucky. I'm thinking we could extend the salting to use a picture: CAPTCHA phrase "lk2s" + dog picture + some instructions that it should be typed as "lkDOG2s"..

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Yeah, monitors. I have two workstations here at work (WinXP and XUbuntu), and I like it! Supposedly, my teammate and I should be working on Linux, but our old Windows machines haven't been revoked yet. I hope we do keep them. The load per machine has considerably lessened, and it feels really great to no longer wait for Eclipse or Aptana to respond!

Anyway, my brain doesn't want to work. I try to rev my figurative engines, but all I get are sputters.

My teammate and I are expecting a bulk of work to be assigned to us in a while. I would have enjoyed it last week, when I could still think.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Although I already reacted (quite aversely -- his Blogger blog had over 300 posts and my Multiply account had email notifications turned on, so just at the time when I was checking my mail on my cellphone, I had 369 new messages in my Inbox! A dozen of those notifications actually fell into Spam.. Nice one.. =p), I haven't asked him why. I don't think stuff like that needs to be justified.. Hehehe..

But the live action Prince of Tennis movie was disappointing (except for seeing the special moves "in real life"..).

So, I reeeaaally like Virtua Tennis 3 for the PSP.

Federer was beatable in the World Tour compared to a Very Hard Exhibition match.

Juan Carlos Ferrero was a nightmare for my player! I couldn't beat him! His description in the game was Strong Forehand, if I recall correctly, but it should have been Technical Player! I hate his drop shots and stupid lobs. Despite my animosity, I learned a lot from his play style.

My preferred doubles partners were Nadal and Hingis. Because I also prefer them in real life. =p

I like how the game had special dialogue to the player I beat the most (Nalbandian, who emphasizes that he hasn't beaten me yet =p).

» Tekken 6 was released in the Philippines -- earlier than in North America and Europe!

Thanks, Namco! =D I've only tried the game one night/three games, but the only thing I didn't like was how the characters were too shiny. But Nap said that that was how we saw the PS2 version of TTT, so we would probably get used to it soon. Yoshimitsu (punch costume) scared me!

» I have a new nephew!

Ate gave birth to Ash last week! =) (I didn't bother visiting during the long weekend?! :-o)

» New puppy!

Ma named her Jenny. She's hyper!

» This is an old pet peeve: I can't post on Blogger on the Opera Mini!

So when I wanted to post something, I had to do so via email. Not that I've been blogging much recently. =p

These aren't even good bullet-points!

I KNOW I missed a lot of stuff (intentionally? subconsciously? =p), but this is already a lot for a comeback post! Not a lot of details but still a lot of: BULLET-POINTS!